There is a protest planned midway through the first half of England’s World
Cup qualification tie away to Poland on Tuesday — with home fans urged to
raise white handkerchiefs to show their displeasure that the embattled head
of the football federation, Grzegorz Lato, did not quit after the finals of
Euro 2012.

Eye on the ball: Borussia Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski holds off Manchester City's Jack Rodwell in the Champions LeaguePhoto: EPA

Lato is going now — and the protest might be a damp squib given the latest controversy surrounding him, with one local paper claiming that he approved the allocation of up to 30,000 tickets to VIPs and other groups rather than sell them to the public. It might also, toEngland’s benefit, affect the atmosphere.

Lato is a symbol of Poland’s past glories – an international striker for 13 years from 1971, the Golden Boot winner as top scorer at the 1974 World Cup, when his country finished third. It feels like a very long time ago for Polish football.

Poland’s great hope these days is also a striker: Robert Lewandowski. And like Lato he is also someone who has divided opinion. For all the pride in the 24 year-old’s ability and achievements there is a familiar debate that has raged around him – does he save his best displays not for his country but for his club team, Borussia Dortmund?

His reputation grows. In Poland they fully expect Lewandowski to leave Dortmund next summer and follow Shinji Kagawa to Manchester United. But any number of Europe’s leading clubs would be interested in signing Lewandowski and Italian champions, Juventus, are thought to be sending scouts to Tuesday’s game to watch him. Lewandowski has already made it clear to Dortmund that he will not agree an extension to his contract at the club, which expires in June 2014, and there is an acceptance in Germany that he will be sold.

Indeed he might have already been playing in England had the Icelandic volcano that grounded flights back in April 2010 not prevented him from watching Blackburn Rovers play Everton, after the Ewood Park club had shown an interest.

Instead of Rovers, Lewandowski signed for Dortmund and has become a key part of their success in winning back-to-back German league titles with their progressive, attacking football and so impressively outplaying Manchester City in the Champions League.

“He played well in that game,” Wayne Rooney said when asked about Lewandowski’s performance. “He had the runners either side of him and they counter-attacked very well. That is something we have to be aware of because we know Poland are a good counter-attacking team. We will have to deal with that.”

Whether Poland have the same standard of player as Dortmund, however, is questionable. Nevertheless one of the more pertinent points made after Dortmund’s domination of City in the Champions League was this: three players who could feature for England (Joleon Lescott, James Milner and Gareth Barry) could not make the City team that night; three of the Dortmund players instrumental in their performance are first choice for Poland.

Lewandowski and the impressive Lukasz Piszczek will play on Tuesday, however, captain Jakub Blaszczykowski is now out with an ankle injury. Both Lewandowski and Piszczek were rested for Friday’s friendly at home to South Africa, along with Ludovic Obraniak, with Poland labouring to a 1-0 win with question marks again raised as to whether the new coach, Waldemar Fornalik, is up to the job.

Results so far, and after a disappointing Euro 2012 campaign which promised so much when Lewandowski scored the tournament’s first goal, against Greece, have been uninspiring with Friday’s win only their second in seven matches.

But England need to be aware of Lewandowski’s threat. Certainly his coach at Dortmund, the highly-rated Jürgen Klopp — who Liverpool were interested in hiring last summer — is unstinting in his praise.

“He is the most exciting player I have seen in the past 10 or 15 years,” Klopp said of his striker. “We needed the quality I could see in Lewandowski. We needed someone who has very good technique and who is a great finisher — with a real desire to score goals.”